CHAPTER XIII
THE BRIGHT SHADOW
The Champneys chauffeur, greatly to Mrs. MacGregor's terror and disapproval, seemed to live for speed alone; in consequence, one afternoon Mrs. MacGregor and Nancy very narrowly escaped dying for it. Whereupon Mr. Champneys summarily dismissed the chauffeur and engaged in his place young Glenn Mitchell, accidentally brought to his notice. Mr. Champneys congratulated himself upon the discovery of Glenn Mitchell. To begin with, he was a South Carolinian, one of those well-born, penniless, ambitious young Southerners who come to New York to make their fortune. One of his forebears had married a Champneys. That was in ante bellum days, but South Carolina has a long memory, and this far-off tie immediately established the young fellow upon a footing of family relationship and of cousinly friendliness. He was a personable youth of twenty, who had worked his way through high school and meant presently to go through the College of Physicians and Surgeons,—his grandfather had been a distinguished physician, Mr. Champneys remembered. The boy proposed to use his skill in handling a motor-car as a means toward that end.
Mr. Chadwick Champneys would gladly have paid Glenn's college expenses out of his own pocket, but the young man, delicately sounded, politely but sturdily declined. The next best thing the kindly old Carolinian could do, then, was to make the boy a member of his own household. Hoichi had orders to prepare a room for Mr. Mitchell, and Mrs. MacGregor was advised that he would take his meals with the family. She was at first inclined to be scandalized: to bring your chauffeur to your own table was Americanism with a vengeance! But when she met the young man, she was mollified. This chauffeur was a gentleman, and in Mrs. MacGregor's estimation a gentleman may do many things without losing caste. She remembered that the perfectly decent younger son of a certain poverty-stricken nobleman had driven a car. This young Mitchell was exceptionally good-looking in a nice, boyish, fresh-faced way, and she saw in his manner a youthful reflection of the courtliness which distinguished Mr. Chadwick Champneys. He had a great deal of that indefinable something we call charm, and before she knew it Mrs. MacGregor was won over to him, and looked upon his presence as a distinct addition to the Champneys menage.
When he had been introduced to Nancy, she was mentioned as "My niece, Mrs. Champneys." Mrs. MacGregor called her "Anne." Mr. Champneys spoke to her as "Nancy," and Glenn thought he must have been mistaken as to that "Mrs." There was no sign of a husband anywhere; neither was there any indication of widowhood. Nobody mentioned Peter—Mr. Champneys because he was more interested in talking about Glenn's business than his own, on the occasions when he had time to talk about anything; Mrs. MacGregor, because she had never seen Peter, knew nothing at all about him, except that there was a nephew somewhere in the background of things, and wasn't in the least interested in anything but her own immediate affairs; besides, it never would have occurred to her to talk about her employer's affairs, even if she had known anything about them. An employer who was a gentleman, and very wealthy, belonged to the Established Order, and Mrs. MacGregor had the thorough-going British respect for Established Order. Nancy, for her part, wished to forget that Peter existed. She never by any chance mentioned him, or even thought of him if she could help it. So when young Glenn Mitchell, after the pleasant South Carolina fashion, addressed her as "Miss Nancy" it seemed perfectly all right to everybody.
Nancy was a little over eighteen then. She had grown taller, but she retained the pleasant angularity of extreme youth. Because she didn't know how to arrange her hair, Mrs. MacGregor sternly forbidding frizzing and curling, and insisting upon a "modest simplicity becoming to a young girl" she wore her red mane in a huge plait. She had been so teased and badgered about her red hair, had hated it so heartily, been so ashamed of it, that she didn't realize how magnificent it was now, after two years of care and cleanliness. It wasn't auburn; it wasn't Titian; it was a bright, rich, glittering, unbuyable, undeniable red, and Nancy wore her plait as a boy wears a chip on his shoulder. Young Glenn Mitchell was seized with a wild desire to catch hold of that braid that was like a cable of gleaming copper, and wind it around his wrists. For the first time, he thought, he was seeing the true splendor and beauty of red hair; and the girl had the wonderfully white skin that accompanies it. He suspected that she must have been pretty badly freckled when she was a child, for the freckles were still fairly visible, though one saw that they would presently vanish altogether. The curve of her throat and chin, the "salt-cellars" at the base of the neck, left nothing to be desired. Altogether there was that about this girl that caught and held his boyish attention. It wasn't that she was pretty,—he had at first thought her plain. It was rather that here lay a tantalizing promise of unfoldment by and by, a sheathed hint of something rare and perilous.
He didn't quite know what to make of Mr. Champneys's niece. She was abnormally silent, unbelievably unobtrusive, singularly still. Watching her, he found himself wishing she would smile, at least occasionally: he longed to see what her mouth would look like if it should curve into laughter. She had exquisite teeth, and her eyes, when one was allowed to get a glimpse of them, were of a curious, agaty, gray green, with one or two little spots or flecks in the iris. Hers was an impassive, emotionless face; yet she gave a distinct impression of feeling, emotion, passion held in check; it was as if her feelings had been frozen. But suppose a spring thaw should set in—what then? Would there be just a calm brook flowing underneath placid willows, or a tempestuous torrent sweeping all before it? He wondered!
She sat opposite him at table three times a day, and never addressed a word to him, or to Mrs. MacGregor, who carried on whatever conversation there might be. Mrs. MacGregor liked to give details of entertainments "at home," at which she herself had been present, or of events in which A Member of My Family had participated. "I said to the dear Bishop,"—"His Lordship remarked to My Cousin." Sometimes during these recitals the thin, fine edge of a smile touched Nancy's lips. It was gone so quickly one wasn't quite sure it had been there at all; yet its brief passage gave her a strange expression of mockery and of weariness. She offered no opinions of her own about anything; she made no slightest attempt to keep the conversation alive; you could talk, or you could remain silent—it was all one to her. Yet dumb and indifferent though she appeared to be, you felt her presence as something very vital, listening, and immensely honest and natural.
He wished she would speak to him, say something more than a mere "Yes" or "No." Girls had always been more than willing to talk to Glenn Mitchell—very much prettier and more fascinating girls than this silent, stubborn, red-headed Anne Champneys. He began to feel piqued, as well as puzzled.